


Mint.

by venator



Category: The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: Established Friendship, Fluff, M/M, Secret Identity, Some Sort of Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-23
Updated: 2014-04-23
Packaged: 2018-01-20 12:32:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1510544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venator/pseuds/venator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The biggest clue Flash has is mint - but he still can't piece it together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mint.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry for being terrible at summaries. Also this is my first fic here, pls be kind pls pls pls.

They’ve been edging around each other tentatively as of late.

Flash doesn’t exactly know how they got there, but he knows that they did. He knows that every time he sees Peter Parker in the school hallway he feels a gentle tug somewhere in his stomach, just above his navel. He can’t quite put his finger on it – hasn’t felt something like it in a long time. 

The problem is that he also knows there’s not much he can do about it.

If he risks telling Peter about it, he risks breaking what he worked so hard to build. But if he keeps it to himself, he’s stuck in a limbo of only getting to feel the small tug in his stomach, maybe a flutter in his chest, nothing more. No running his fingers through tousled locks of brown hair or breathing in his scent, something similar to those dumb _mint_ Wagon Wheels he always eats. 

Sometimes he thinks that Parker might understand. Flash catches him staring often, smiling softly to himself when he looks away. He thinks he sees it in the way that they walk a little closer than others, or the way that Peter laughs a little louder when it’s just them two. 

But then again, maybe it’s just friends that do that. 

\--

When he tries to tell Gwen, they’re sitting on a wooden bench during lunchtime and there aren’t too many people around. She just smiles softly to herself and looks down at her sandwich like she’s already heard this before. Flash wonders when and from whom.

Halfway through his explanation of that weird feeling behind his gut, he thinks he can hear the familiar sound of skateboard wheels sliding over gravel. When the sound stops, he continues complaining to Gwen.

“I just want to tell him,” he mumbles, looking down at his hands. “Or maybe do something about it.”

“What’s stopping you?” 

Of course Gwen would ask him the hard questions. Flash doesn’t really need to think about his answer, he has already, but he takes the time to do so anyway. 

“Fear, I guess.”

“Of what?” Gwen presses, turning her head to face him. The book she brought along with her leans against the wooden table. She looks earnest. Flash guesses that’s why he came to her – she was the only one he could really trust with this sort of information. 

“Of ruining our friendship,” Flash says meaningfully, hands beginning to fiddle with the hem of his t-shirt. “He’s the only _real_ friend I’ve ever had,” he continues softly, shrugging his shoulders and smiling lightly. “I don’t want him to think I’m a freak, or something.”

That comment causes Gwen to laugh softly to herself and turn back to her book.

“That’s the _last_ thing he’ll think of you, trust me.”

“How would you know?”

But that conversation is instantly over when Flash suddenly hears the same sound of wheels rolling over gravel and then Peter Parker himself rolls into view, hands in pockets and hair messed up by the wind. Flash can’t help the grin he gives.

“Hey guys,” the boy greets, sliding into the table so he’s facing both of them. He pulls out a _mint_ Wagon Wheel – why is it always _mint_? – and begins chomping on it.

Flash is too busy rolling his eyes in fondness to notice the secret smile that Gwen and Peter share.

\--

He’s walking down the street alone – that’s his first mistake. It’s late at night – his second mistake. There is a chemistry test tomorrow morning, which, up until two hours ago, he knew nothing about. Silently thanking Gwen for her patience and kindness, Flash stuffs his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and starts to walk a little faster. He’s slightly scared, but so what? You would be too if you were unarmed – his third mistake – and _alone_ and _out late._

Despite this street being pretty isolated, the city is alive around him. There are lights shining high above his head, blotting out the night stars that he hasn’t seen in a long time. The sound of traffic is not far away and there are even some sirens going off somewhere in the distance. He wonders if Spiderman is out there trying to stop the sirens – or possibly being the cause of them? 

There’s a small smile on his face as his thoughts wander – his fourth mistake. 

Suddenly, although Flash is mildly unsurprised because he was almost expecting something to happen, there is a knife at his throat. There is hot breath on the back of his neck and the smell of smoke and grime assaults his nose. 

“Give me your mo –”

His attacker doesn’t get to finish because Flash elbows him in the side, ducks and slides out of the grip easily, throws a punch and turns to run. Before he gets very far, there’s a click, the sound of something locking on target. Freezing immediately, he sighs a short breath. He doesn’t need to be a genius to know someone’s just pulled a gun on him.

“I don’t have any –”

“Hands up.”

With a swallow that doesn’t come easily now that his throat is dry, Flash turns around slowly and raises his hands. The man has a balaclava and he’s gripping his side. If he weren’t so frustrated with himself for being in this mess, Flash would have smirked at the damage he’d caused. Except the man is holding a gun and Flash is not. This is definitely not a time for smugness. 

“I won’t hurt you if you just give me everything in your pockets.”

The voice isn’t threatening. It trembles and that makes Flash sad. He doesn’t think the man would be doing this if he didn’t have to. Pursing his lips slightly, Flash begins to lower his hands as calmly as he can. He tenses up, halfway to his pockets, when the man yells again.

“I said hands up!”

“How is he supposed to reach his pockets if he’s not allowed to put his hands down?”

Both Flash and the masked gentleman look towards the direction the voice spoke from. A jet of something that looks like very strong silly string shoots out from the shadows, and disappears with the gun the man was holding. Clearly surprised, the man falls to his knees and fumbles for the knife he dropped on the ground when Flash defended himself. 

“Aw, c’mon. The knife? Really? You think that’s gonna help you?”

The man doesn’t stop looking, hands frantically feeling at the gravelly ground. 

“Well, you’re persistent, I’ll give you that.” 

A knife drops to the ground next to the man, the sound it makes echoes through the empty street. Without a second to waste, the man lunges for the knife and scrambles up off his knees and in the opposite direction. 

It takes Flash a second, after the man has gone and silence swallows up the street again, for him to realize that both his arms are still suspended in mid air. He looks around, tentatively, lowering them slowly as he does so. 

“You okay?” The voice comes from right above him this time. When he looks up, Spiderman is living up to his name and hanging upside down from a broken, flickering street lamp. Since, apparently, Flash has also lost his voice as well as his dignity this evening, he merely nods.

“Good, I’m glad,” Spiderman tells him.

The web glistens in the moonlight – or is it the light of the street lamp? It’s quieter now, like the traffic has stopped moving. There aren’t any sirens, only Flash’s hard breathing. He’s both terrified and excited and he thinks it shows, because Spiderman laughs at him from where he hangs just above Flash. His cheeks heat up out of exhilaration – _nothing more._

Spiderman comes lower till Flash is staring right at his upside down, red and blue masked face. He can almost _feel_ the smile under that mask as Spiderman tilts his head and the lenses of his mask glint. 

His breath hitches when Spiderman takes one hand off the web to pull his mask over his chin, over his lips, till it sits crumpled over what Flash would assume was his nose. Then, he’s staring at Spiderman’s lips. They look eerily familiar, but he can’t think about that because _he’s staring at Spiderman’s lips_. And in the second that he’s _thinking_ about _why_ he’s staring _at Spiderman’s lips_ , said lips are not longer in the position they were before, and instead have found themselves on Flash’s own. 

It takes him a second to register what is going on, but when he does he can’t help the way his eyelids flutter shut and he returns the kiss. The hands at his sides curl into fists and all of a sudden there’s sunshine and bliss coursing through his very veins, and it feels so good he groans from somewhere in the back of his throat without realizing. 

Spiderman’s lips are softer than one would expect. They are warm, but Flash can’t tell if that’s Spiderman or him, because he’s warm all over. He tastes like justice and the cold night air he soars through – or maybe that’s _mint_ he tastes? Before Flash can make up his mind, there are no longer any lips covering his. 

When his eyes open, there is no one around. His car is waiting patiently for him. All the sounds of the night appear to have returned – the traffic, the sirens, and now he can even hear laughter down the street. He looks at his clenched hands at his sides and he smiles, a small tug at each side of his lips. 

_He just kissed Spiderman._

\--

Only naturally, the first person he feels compelled to tell about this incident is Peter. 

Peter _that’s-a-really-funny-joke-no-one-has-kissed-Spiderman_ Parker. 

Flash doesn’t care what Peter says though. He goes home with the taste of _mint_ lingering on his lips.

\--

A week later and Flash still hasn’t forgotten about it. 

They’re both sitting in an empty classroom afterschool, in detention. Flash can’t quite recall what happened in order for both Peter and he to have gotten detention at the same time – something about a skateboard and one of the guys from the basketball team. 

Flash is telling Peter, once again, exactly what happened. Peter doesn’t look bored, but Flash can’t say he looks interested either. In fact, he can’t quite decipher the look on the other boys face. He’s smiling, ever so slightly, but he looks… annoyed? Like he wants Flash to shut his mouth, but he also thinks it’s amusing. 

“Sorry,” Flash interrupts himself, staring intently at Peter’s face, trying to understand. The boy looks up, confused.

“Why’d you stop?”

Now it’s Flash’s turn to be confused. “You, uh, didn’t exactly look ecstatic about it. I figured you were kind of sick of hearing me talk about it.” He offers a nervous laugh, to which he receives a sheepish grin back. That’s a smile he does know, Peter’s usual – broad, full of light, and a little bit mischievous. 

A teacher steps into the room to inform them that they are free to go, and Peter stands up almost instantly, like he knew it was coming. As Peter makes his way towards the door, he grips Flash’s shoulder as a goodbye. Flash smiles softly to himself, staring down at the empty wooden desk in front of him. Truth be told, he was hoping that if he repeated the story of his Spiderman kiss to Peter enough times the boy would begin to be jealous. 

As he looks towards the door Peter left through he can see the boy falter in his steps. 

“Are you sure it was Spiderman you kissed?” Peter asks as he turns around and makes his way back to the classroom. His lips are pulled up on one side in a small smile. His hair is mussed, like he had just run his hand through it, and his lips look familiar and inviting and Flash doesn’t understand why. 

Flash frowns at him as he gets out of his seat, and tells him there’s no one else it could have been. 

Peter is leaning on the doorframe. He looks thoughtful as he stares directly at Flash. He’s still grinning slightly, but Flash can tell when he begins chewing the inside of his lip – he’s nervous. 

Then the bag hanging on Peter’s shoulder slips off his arm and to the ground, and Peter surges forward, back in front of Flash within a second. One hand grabs at Flash’s jacket, while the other snakes its way over the smooth skin of his neck and up to the back of his head to pull him down and attach their lips together. Flash makes a sound of surprise at the sudden contact, but relaxes into the boy’s strong grip in a matter of seconds, his own hands settling on Peter’s waist. 

They’ve been edging around each other for so long, the kiss just feels _right_. He gets that feeling of warmth again. A wave of goose bumps rise and fall across his skin and he grips at Peter’s hips tighter. Between Peter’s tongue tracing his mouth and the soft noises he keeps making, Flash manages to think about how similar this situation feels. 

Peter’s mouth is soft, so soft. He tastes like the coffee he drank this morning and a little bit like…

Flash growls involuntarily when Peter pulls away. The other boy bites at his lower lip. He doesn’t let go of Flash until he bumps their noses together gently, mouth hovering just over Flash’s for a moment, before he turns and walks away.

“I’ll see you later, Flash.” 

There’s nothing Flash can really do except stand in the same spot, breathing hard, staring as the boy he just kissed walks away. A smile crawls its way onto his face as Peter disappears. 

Grabbing his own bag, he leaves the room. As he walks through the hallway, Flash can taste Peter on his lips. Coffee and a little bit of…

_Mint._

He freezes, smile disappearing from his features. _No way._


End file.
